The Inner Circle
The day after the stoning game, inside the Imperial Palace.
Zora, formerly chief attendant to the deposed Second Prince, trembled with mounting dread.
In the Empire, serving as an attendant to imperial royalty—especially to an heir of legitimate blood—was never a matter of menial chores. It was routine for titled Court Nobles or their designated heirs to compete for such appointments, and occasionally, close kin of the Emperor himself took up the mantle. The role demanded proximity to supreme power, assisting the imperial personage in delicate political and state affairs.
When succession rivalries turned vicious, the post could cost a man his neck; but if handled with cunning, it guaranteed a lifetime of aristocratic splendor.
In that regard, Zora's career had once been the envy of his peers. Born the son of a noble house, he had outmaneuvered fierce competition to secure his place beside the Second Prince, rapidly earning his master's favor to become an indispensable confidant. As the Second Prince's prestige soared to celestial heights, Zora's own influence had surged in tandem.
A mere two months ago, he was the literal gatekeeper to supreme authority.
"Could you perhaps grant me... a whisper of insight regarding Kodana?"
"Please, put in a good word for me with His Imperial Highness! ...Ah, yes, it's true I presented a rare tribute to the First Prince last winter, but you mustn't mistake that for switching allegiances! I am the Second Prince's man to my dying breath...!"
"You aren't still holding a grudge over that trivial scuffle back at the Academy, are you...? Come now, old friend, do me this kindness."
The demands of his office bound him to the palace day and night, yet whenever he returned to his family's estate on leave, supplicants lined the courtyard just to catch a glimpse of his face.
Now, stripped of his kingmaking sway, Zora was entirely ruined.
No, calling myself ruined is an understatement.
His future looked every bit as catastrophic as Kodana's chart.
Even if he had merely obeyed the Second Prince's direct commands, his hands were far too stained with high treason and ruinous schemes. He had practically orchestrated the covert operation that smuggled the Hero in and out of the palace, and he had personally managed the logistics of the illicit off-market sales to the Holy Kingdom.
His sole remaining grace was that his formal sentence had not yet been handed down.
After a grueling, hours-long interrogation, he had simply been detained within a secure palace wing alongside a handful of other cronies who had acted as the Second Prince's hands and feet.
They won't just let me walk. At the very least, they'll strip my noble rank. I might even be cast into a penal labor camp.
How could he ensure a comfortable living once his sentence was served? As Zora racked his desperate mind, a single name flashed across his thoughts.
Having reached a decision, Zora moved without delay.
"Excuse me... Dame Knight?"
He called out pleadingly toward the Royal Knight guarding the detained retinue.
To reduce an elite knight of the Imperial Royal Guard to a prison warden was an absurd waste of talent, but given the sheer gravity of the crisis, an order member had been stationed alongside common foot soldiers.
That warden was Celine, renowned as one of the most formidable female knights in the order.
Her skin was sun-tanned to a rich, healthy bronze, framed by bright golden hair. Her striking, full-figured appearance commanded no small number of admirers, earning her modest fame across the Imperial Capital. Before being dispatched to relieve the border, she had put on weight and grown somewhat soft, but she had since regained her toned, athletic physique.
"Uh, excuse me? Over here."
"..."
"Could I have a brief word?"
"Quiet."
Celine dismissed his desperate plea with thinly veiled disgust.
Naturally, babysitting the abandoned cronies of a disgraced imperial prince was hardly an enviable assignment. Yet Zora refused to back down, calling out to her again and again.
"My head is throbbing enough without your whining... What do you want?"
A response at last. Zora quickly plastered on the most ingratiating smile he could muster.
"You're close with Baron Wellesley, aren't you?"
"..."
"Last year, at a banquet hosted by His Imperial High—no, he was deposed, wasn't he. At Matthias's banquet, I saw you drinking and laughing with the other knights. There is a matter of utmost urgency I must discuss with Baron Wellesley. Could you pass word and ask him to come down here for a moment?"
"Eric?"
"Yes, him."
The card Zora intended to play was none other than Eric.
At a glance, it sounded like sheer lunacy.
Before Eric was ennobled, Zora had been personally complicit in dumping seventy Kodana coins onto his lap. And when the scandal of the falsified combat reports erupted, Zora was the one who had advised Matthias to offer Eric up as the sacrificial lamb.
Eric had every reason in the world to despise him.
I was only following imperial orders... Well, not entirely. And I confessed everything during the inquest anyway. Still, there's no way Eric knows that.
Crucially, Zora held a piece of leverage ripe for bargaining.
Back when the Second Prince commanded absolute favor, Zora had accidentally secured definitive proof of an affair involving a former Court Minister. The private dirt on a retired grandee who still regularly visited the inner palace to share drinks with the Emperor was worth an absolute fortune. To a newly minted noble like Eric, it would be an irresistible prize.
"Baron Wellesley may have secured his peerage through Commander Wainwright's sponsorship, but surely he must be aching for an official imperial appointment, wouldn't you say? Even if he cannot reach ministerial rank right away, a Court Noble needs an actual administrative portfolio to carry weight..."
"How would I know what goes on in Eric's head?"
"Come now! If that man possesses any ambition to climb the court, tell him to come see me. Tell him it's a golden chance to draw closer to His Majesty. You two share a close bond, so I'm certain you can present it convincingly."
"...You claim you hold that kind of leverage? Then why are you rotting in a cell waiting for your sentence?"
"Haha, well, that's merely a temporary complication. Just convey my message, please."
Even if an overnight noble like Eric intervened, it wouldn't wipe Zora's slate entirely clean. But given Eric's standing with Commander Wainwright, he might at least spare Zora from hard labor in the quarries.
From there, Zora intended to ingratiate himself as Eric's personal retainer. As the right-hand man to a baron sitting on a fortune of forty billion liras, he would never have to worry about his livelihood again.
Yet for some reason, Celine merely stared down at him with unvarnished pity.
Being looked at like a pathetic insect by a knight reduced to jailer duty struck a sour chord in his pride.
"Well? Will you carry the message?"
"...We aren't nearly as close as you seem to imagine."
"Ah, but surely—"
"And I doubt Eric needs any 'opportunity' to get close to His Majesty. He's already had two private audiences with the Emperor."
"What...?"
Private audiences?
Zora had been locked away just before the official inquest into the prince began, leaving him completely blind to the capital's developments over the past several days. Even so, it defied all reason that Baron Wellesley had been granted two private audiences with the sovereign. If anything, he should have served as an imperial punching bag to absorb the monarch's wrath.
Celine had no intention of resolving his confusion. Instead, she offered a cold, indifferent snort.
"Besides, you're dead anyway... or rather, bound for the Penal Unit. Why bother scheming?"
"Pardon...?"
"It's already signed and sealed. Every last member of the former Second Prince's inner circle."
Only then did the reality crash down upon Zora. He was being assigned to a convict penal battalion, bound for the border—specifically, the Rancart Margraviate, which had recently suffered catastrophic slaughter at the hands of the beastfolk.
Worse, there was no specified sentence length. In plain terms, he was being hurled onto a blood-soaked frontier as a meat shield until he died a pointless death.
"You should consider yourself lucky you weren't executed on the spot. Steel your mind. Your transport leaves shortly."
Zora stared at Celine's impassive face in petrified silence. He stammered out several more frantic questions, but Celine never spared him another word.
Having seen Matthias off as a thoroughly tenderized slab of meat, I was finally able to step away from the Imperial Palace and head home.
Naturally, the Kodana catastrophe was still unfolding in real time.
The exchange remained shuttered today—principally because investors who missed their chance to participate in the stoning game vented their fury on the exchange building instead, battering it with hundreds of bricks and rotten tomatoes. But mob violence aside, the true devastation wrought by Kodana had only just begun.
Even so, I couldn't afford to remain tethered to the palace indefinitely.
I have far too much work of my own to do.
I needed to cultivate a reliable network, monitor the capital's collapsing economy to snatch up distressed real estate and ancestral treasures, and above all else, elevate my personal combat strength.
Up until now, I had poured countless hours into training while steadily consuming high-grade elixirs. Real combat opportunities were bound to dwindle, so I had prioritized rigorous mental-image simulation to keep my edge sharp. In truth, I had made tangible strides.
Yet mere 'progress' was no longer sufficient to guarantee survival.
The Hero's party had vanished into thin air, and the Holy Kingdom's core military vanguard had been entirely wiped out.
In this unprecedented strategic vacuum, every single Expert and combat mage in the Empire—regardless of whether they were active-duty military or retired—faced the immediate prospect of conscription for the front lines.
In a war between human nations, one might pull political strings to secure an exemption, but against the Demon King's hordes, there was no draft dodging. Under such circumstances, sharpening my blade was the only surefire method to improve my odds of staying alive.
"I shall take my leave now," I informed a ranking official of the Court Department.
A crisp nod was all he offered in return. There was no need to report directly to the Emperor merely to clock out and return home.
The sovereign must be utterly exhausted anyway. Watching his own son get battered with cobblestones in the public square for three straight hours before being shipped off in chains to the Holy Kingdom... his mind can't be at peace.
Wishing His Imperial Majesty whatever solace he could manage, I prepared to depart.
Before I could cross the threshold, however, the official stopped me with a word of caution.
"An imperial decree will be dispatched to your residence shortly, Baron Wellesley."
"A decree, you say?"
"During your private audience, you warned His Majesty of the high probability that the Hero would go into hiding, did you not? We dispatched a covert detachment to Nazak, where the Hero was purportedly sheltering, but..."
"He is almost certainly gone already. Kwon Hee-jin looks down on us as primitive savages, but he isn't so completely mindless that he wouldn't sense danger in a disaster of this scale. He will remain buried deep underground until he concocts some defense to twist the narrative in his favor."
"Our department shares the exact same assessment. ...And should that worst-case scenario come to pass, someone must track his trail. When that moment arrives, Baron Wellesley, it is highly likely you will be called upon to take part. Barring Matthias, you understand the Hero better than anyone alive."
"..."
"We shall see each other again soon. Safe travels."
Called upon to take part.
That phrasing alone laid bare how the palace viewed my standing. Regardless of the Emperor's personal sentiments, the court bureaucracy already treated me as part of the monarch's inner circle. Before long, alongside my peerage, I would likely have a respectable imperial portfolio thrust into my hands.
It promised to be an annoyance, but from a purely pragmatic standpoint, holding imperial authority was never a bad thing.
I quietly stepped beyond the palace gates.
For the moment, the Imperial Capital—and the noble quarters in particular—lay blanketed beneath an eerie hush.
It was not that the investors had vented their rage and found peace; this was merely a temporary lull born of sheer physical exhaustion. Having pulverized an entire plaza while hurling paving stones (Professor Weber and his academic colleagues were reportedly volunteering to mend the destroyed cobblestones at this very hour), the mob simply lacked the stamina to keep rioting.
In the end, the true architect of this misery was not the Second Prince, but Hero Kwon Hee-jin.
Until that bastard was dragged into the light and made to pay, true peace was nothing more than an illusion.
